Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Irving Penn: Radical Beauty 1946-2007

Known for depicting his subjects with a rare combination of precision and compositional elegance, Irving Penn's work contrasts elements of the grotesque and the sublime. Throughout his early career as a photographer at Vogue, and then later in his personal work, he consistently questioned and reinvented the parameters of physical beauty. His early nudes, from the late 1940s, were not exhibited until over three decades later.

The thirty photographs on view at Fraenkel Gallery explore Penn's radical and long-standing investigation into what constitutes beauty, an aspect of his career that has received only passing attention. His subjects, from the highlands of Papua New Guinea to the high-society of the fashion world, are presented as distinct and particular. Several images in the exhibition, obscures faces - Canvas Head With Hardware (design by Jun Takahashi) and Football Face, among others - alluding to the masks of fashion and persons.

Later in his career, Irving Penn traveled the globe photographing indigenous people in a stimulated, portable studio, producing memorable images from Africa, South America, and Papua New Guinea. Numerous books on his work have been published.

About Me

I am a French lady, met my husband in New York and lived in the USA since then... A Parisian in sunny California now !
I blog about the things I like. Art, design, architecture, books, photography, intriguing places, fashion, edgy stuff, inspirations of the moment, unusual, beautiful and unique pieces. Having spent my childhood in France, I write and post articles about France too. What's up is Franco-Anglo and showcases some of the exquisite things and places that I come across - hope you enjoy my " trouvailles du jour," daily musings.

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Peter Politanoff

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Lavender and Cervantes (Don Quixote, 1804)

... but to go round the world and play at give and take with giants and dragons and monsters, and hear hissings and roarings and bellowings and howlings, and even all of this would be lavender, if we had not to reckon with Yanguesans and enchanted Moors.